David Foster Wallace Commencement Speech Analysis

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A degree shows your school education level, but it isn’t a certificate of your actual intelligence. David Foster Wallace made his commencement speech at Kenyon College in 2005 pointing out that we all have a default setting that holds us back from greatness. Simply having a degree does not mean that you know how to think; which is half of your intellectual ability. Everyone is pre-programmed from birth to believe that the world revolves around them; that they’re the center of the universe. Having this self centered world view is normal; this is the way that everyone is preset to think at birth. Your day to day thoughts require little input from you, you just think them. Wallace argues that a true education requires knowing how to think and …show more content…

“Because the traffic jams and crowded aisles and long checkout lines give me time to think, and if I don’t make a conscious decision about how to think and what to pay attention to, I’m gonna be pissed and miserable every time I have to shop. Because my natural default setting is the certainty that situations like this are really all about me” (Wallace 204) here he is showing that the routines we go through on a daily basis can either make us happy, or anger us. The difference between us being happy or angry doing these daily routines is all based our decision on how we wish to view the situation. “But most days, if you’re aware enough to give yourself a choice, you can look differently at this fat, dead-eyed, over-made-up lady who just screamed at her kid in the checkout line. Maybe she’s not usually like this. Maybe she’s been up three straight nights holding the hand of a husband who is dying of bone cancer. Or maybe this very lady is the low-wage clerk at the motor vehicle department, who just yesterday helped your spouse resolve a horrific, infuriating, red-tape problem through some small act of bureaucratic …show more content…

These days so many people are in a rush to get everywhere, they don’t have time to wait for anyone that could be in the way. It’s disappointing to see that our society has gone from a bunch of people that are patient, kind, and respectful; to a society where no one is willing to have any patience or show any general respect for those around them. This speech was excellent, it’s unfortunate that I had never heard of it before; this is definitely a speech that every single graduate needs to hear before they even leave high

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